In late 2019, a blizzard was bearing down on the Philadelphia area when managers at DEW8 told night shift workers to use unpaid time off (UPT) and leave early. We didn’t see why we should be penalized for bad weather, and we told management that if they wanted to close the warehouse early, then they should pay us for the shift, not make us lose paid time. 

We were in a powerful position, because the managers couldn’t leave the warehouse until we did. We kept working. Management kept asking us to take UPT, and we kept refusing. Finally, after two hours of this standoff, Amazon realized that we weren’t going to accept UPT. They agreed to close the warehouse and guarantee our full pay for the shift. We all got home before the blizzard hit - with full pay - thanks to our collective action and determination. 

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